About Ben Klutsey

Seeing military rule growing up strengthened my interest in the questions that matter most: how nations prosper, what makes free societies durable, and what happens when the institutions we depend on begin to fail. These questions have never felt abstract to me. They feel urgent.

Today I serve as Executive Director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, one of the country’s leading centers for the study of markets, institutions, and civil society. My work sits at the intersection of ideas and action: building the next generation of scholars and practitioners who can make the case for free societies and equip them to do so with rigor and conviction.

A Resilient Republic podcast is an extension of that work, bringing monthly episodes to you featuring the best interdisciplinary thinking from political economy, history, law, and philosophy to the most pressing questions facing free societies today.

Classical liberals like Smith, Hayek, Buchanan, and Ostrom have informed my thinking the most, as thinkers who understood that liberty is built, not merely declared. The institutions and communities that sustain freedom need constant tending, and the work of renewal is never finished.

If you’re curious about how free societies adapt, endure, and flourish, this is the right place.

In addition to subscribing to this Substack, you can find me on X @benklutsey or on LinkedIn.